Sara McGuire is a Ph.D. candidate who’s journey to Anthropology started like many others: not in Anthropology. After double majoring in Forensics and History, Sara received the opportunity for an internship at the Smithsonian. While working on skeletal samples at the Museum Conservation Institute’s stable isotope laboratory for anthropologists at the National Museum of Natural History, Sara found her passion in bioarchaeology with an emphasis on both trace element and isotopic analysis. Her burning question being: what effects do our environments have on our body?
With that question in mind, Sara completed her Masters in England, gaining the methodological training she needed. Her dissertation there consisted of determining if there was evidence of Romanization through dietary changes amongst a 2000-year-old English population.
Here at Ohio State, Sara has continued her training and has also received a strong foundation in anthropological theory. Sara’s current dissertation consists of studying both skeletal and soil samples from the Industrial Period in England to try and correlate the environment and the effects it had on the individuals living during that time. Along with her dissertation, Sara also has an internship with the Department of Justice. To combine all of her projects into one career goal, Sara hopes to use her understanding of how our environments “get into” the body to assist in the identification of skeletal remains in forensic contexts.
HEADS for Sara is a place to become a better academic through the knowledge gained from the other member’s research. The opportunity for collaboration is also an aspect of HEADS that Sara benefits from, allowing her to share ideas, initiate projects, and become more involved in various events in anthropology.
